Initial Posting

I know this is going to be a controversial observation.

There's a new thread every week on this forum for an updated PowerPoint
Viewer - this even predates the new PowerPoint 2002 as we all know.
Although I'm sure a new PowerPoint Viewer which allows you to see
all the cool PowerPoint 2002 features is very welcome - a certain
part of my thought is imagining that maybe we all are not ready
to let go. Maybe we all like to stick through convention - that's
human nature after all.

Enter Internet Explorer (or even Netscape!) - not as a mere browser,
but the new PowerPoint Viewer. No PowerPoint Viewer can hope to
be as omnipresent as this browser - no Viewer could be bestowed
with newer capabilities as soon as they are available. Anyway,
with the way in which PowerPoint seems headed, a very large portion
of the new PowerPoint Viewer's code will have to be based on Internet
Explorer anyway.

So, what's wrong with Internet Explorer? Lots! As a PowerPoint
Viewer, it's not up to the job. What's the alternative? PowerPoint
Viewer 97? That's even worse if you ask me. It won't play animated
GIFs, won't accept ActiveX controls for stuff like embedded Flash,
PDF, Director, Atmosphere, VRML, Wavelets, and anything more ....
or anything less. It will not run on the next (and even passé)
generation computers and operating systems - the Palm, Pocket PC,
Handhelds, Macintosh, Linux, BeOS, TabletPC, etc. etc.

I think the biggest grouse we all have against any browser is
that it doesn't open full screen like a presentation. That's easily
remedied. Even Netscape can open fullscreen with only a title bar.
Even that can be removed with a plug-in. Internet Explorer, of
course opens fullscreen through the "-k" parameter as
also through JavaScript.

Animations are a little jerky - we may just have to learn through
trial and error. Anyway, more than half the presentations are created
with no custom animations and/or transitions even today. In the
other half which use them, a lot are used in bad taste, without
a thought for elegance and context.

Transitions are excellent in Internet Explorer - which, in addition
comes with a slew of Photoshop like effects built at the browser
level. Add such niceties like JavaScript rollovers, DHTML timelines
and more - and Internet Explorer does not look bad anymore...

You can also create hybrid CD/web presentations that work on autorun
CD ROMs as well. Yes, it can be done - and nobody will even see
an Internet Explorer title bar! - but this works only with Windows
though.

And yes, I agree with many of you who espouse the need for a new
PowerPoint Viewer - but maybe we should start looking at the new
world. Time changes after all, as we do...

I'll love to hear from all of you - this might be a forerunner
to a quantum change in our thoughts for PowerPoint distribution.
It could be a damp squib too - but that's a risk I'm prepared to
take.

Thread 02

This is all very well, but I cannot imagine putting stuff on a
CD and giving it to all sorts of people, and then they put it into
a CD drive and it works on all systems. As there are tonnes of
browser versions out in the wild - each with there own little annoyances
/ features.

- TAJ Simmons

In Continuation

If you're ready to use Internet Explorer 5 as the base level,
there's no reason for you to fall into the incompability trap.
And Internet Explorer 4, 5, 5.5 and 6 beta are definitely more
omnipresent than any PowerPoint Viewer could ever be.

Even Netscape can work to a very basic level.

The other day - I could even put my web pages directly into a
multimedia application - and if somehow I can make PowerPoint,
HTML, Flash and Acrobat work together, then wow! The best thing
is - it's possible even today - we just need to get out of convention.

Not many moons ago, so many folks used Persuasion or Harvard Graphics
- and now they use PowerPoint! I think it's real smart of Microsoft
to see the reading on the wall - and make PowerPoint so accessible
to the web. The single most important asset in PowerPoint 2002
is it's web readiness. They own the presentation standard - and
they're leaving no stone unturned to own the 'web presentation'
standard. And if we don't see that - then we only have ourselves
to blame!

Thread 03

I agree - being web based is the way of the future. I see it happening
right now - the US military, who has relied heavily on PowerPoint
for things like daily briefs, etc are writing their own web based
tools to take the place of PowerPoint. A lot of server side things
like JSP, ASP, Digital Dashboard, Servlets, Portals and Porlets
will help to make a Powerpoint presentation a thing of the past
in the not so far off future. PowerPoint 2005 will be PowerPoint.net.

We who are in this business are adaptable. It seem just like yesterday,
I was typing "copy a: b: " We didn't have a "c:" yet !

- Paul Iordanides

In Continuation

Paul, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts - I know many
of us do actually believe that the web is the future for presentations
- but again, it's a case of going against convention.

On another front, I hope we need not wait until 2005 to see the
new PowerPoint. Either Microsoft should make PowerPoint entirely
web capable or go the conventional way - it's difficult sailing
in two boats at a time.

Meanwhile, maybe Microsoft should release an ActiveX control for
PowerPoint like the one available for Flash from Macromedia? Or
is something like that already available?

Anyway, these are all floating thoughts - some of them will settle
down for posterity!

Thread 04

I don't actually have that big a problem with the whole Browser-As-PowerPoint-Viewer
concept. If it worked.

But before we start in on one another with the kippers, let's
be clear on something. No browser is a PowerPoint Viewer, Microsoft
Internet Explorer or otherwise. They're potentially PowerPoint-Data-Saved-As-HTML
viewers. What with roundtripping and archive files, that's admittedly
getting to be less of a drawback than it once was - you don't have
to keep track of bazillions of little assorted files. But it's
still nowhere as simple as my emailing you a PowerPoint file and
you being able to view it on your computer with no PowerPoint installed.

Previous Post (for reference): Animations
are a little jerky - we may just have to learn through trial
and error.

Or more to the point, Microsoft has to make it work. Fair is fair
- they're the ones pushing Internet Explorer as the universal PowerPoint
Viewer, not us. Agreed that most of
the animations you see aren't necessary or even detract from the presentation,
but that's not the point. Either it's a viewer that works - that supports everything
PowerPoint is capable of displaying - or it's not. If there's no viewer, then
Microsoft has failed, not the users.

Previous Post (for reference):Anyway,
more than half the presentations are created with no custom animations
and/or transitions even today. In the other half which use
them, a lot are used in bad taste, without a thought for elegance and context.
Transitions are excellent in Internet Explorer

But unfortunately, not an exact match to the ones in PowerPoint,
which has more. As I recall, it's mostly a matter of variations
on a theme - I'd expect that Explorer could be fairly easily updated
to include the same ones as PowerPoint. And Explorer's dissolves
are a world ahead of PowerPoint, no question about that.

In the end, it comes down to what we want from a viewer. I'll
toss out a few ideas, everyone else can add more ...

Fidelity - When I send you a presentation (in whatever format),
I want to know that you see what I saw

Simplicity - For both of us. I don't want you to have to chase
all over the net looking for viewers and alternate browsers to
download so you can view my presentation. I wouldn't even expect
you to go to those lengths. Do unto others and all that .... <g> By
the same token, I don't want to have to do much more than click
some kind of File, <choose a file>, Send buttons when I want
to send you a pressie. I don't want to dance around all of PowerPoint's
HTML export options, that much is certain.

X-Platform - PC and Mac at a minimum. Unix/Linux would be nice.
Palm Pilots and Cell Phones? Who cares?

- Steve Rindsberg

In Continuation

Thank you for your observations - Steve always has so much to
contribute.

Just that there's no new PowerPoint Viewer on the horizon - and
we have to start looking at new ways. Anyway, Steve with his PPT2HTML
experience is miles ahead of all of us in this viewer vs. browser
imbroglio.

Yes, it's no longer emailing a presentation - it's either mailing
a CD or emailing a URL - and we just forgot those HTML executables
- like 'HTML Executable' - just pack all the HTML and linked files
in a single standalone EXE file.

Granted, Microsoft has got to make it work - but we need to bear
with them - after all porting presentations to the browser is definitely
the future - and a presentation is a subset of a browser, the browser
is not a presentation subset. Anyway, what other alternative do
you see - so it's
back to the old adage - "If you can't beat them, join them!"

Fidelity today is a combination of HTML, Acrobat, Flash, Director
and PowerPoint (also OpenType, MHT, Java, ViewPoint, etc.) - the
result is a web presentation. And PowerPoint's role in this scheme
of things is assured - after all, PowerPoint is emerging as the
glue which binds everything together, what with the fantastic roundtrip
editing in PowerPoint 2002's native and web formats.

Simplicity is sticking to IE 5 and above as a presentation browser
(that's a new term!)

Finally, you may not care for the Palm and PocketPC today - but
we're closer to convergence than ever before. What then? It's more
like crossing the bridge when we come to it - except that there's
a sea beyond and we are the ones not making bridges.

So, let's start making bridges straightaway - between PowerPoint
and the web, the CD and the browser, the Palm and Windows - that's
it.

- Geetesh Bajaj

In Continuation

Previous Post (for reference):Yes,
it's no longer emailing a presentation - it's either mailing
a CD or emailing a URL - and we just forgot those HTML executables
- like 'HTML Executable' - just pack all the HTML and linked
files in a single standalone EXE file.

And Acrobat, come to think of it.

Previous Post (for reference):Granted,
Microsoft has got to make it work - but we need to bear with
them - after all porting presentations to the browser is definitely
the future.

We *hope* it's the future. So far I don't see that they get it,
not really. Let's hope that the fault, dear Brutus, is in my myopia. <g>

Previous Post (for reference):Simplicity
is sticking to IE 5 and above as a presentation browser (that's
a new term!)

Easily said. Now go out and enforce it. Wear your body armor.
There are people out there who'd stick spears in you before they'd
let go of Netscape, and dang, I'd hate to lose you, friend.

Previous Post (for reference):Finally, you
may not care for the Palm and PocketPC today

Hey! Watch yourself there. <g> I think the Palm's fantastic.
I just think that as a presentation platform it's idiotic. I mean .... why?
Same size screen, quadruple the resolution ... maybe. And it'll happen. But
for now? Nah .... ;-)

- Steve Rindsberg

Interludes In Between

Hi Steve. Say, are you friendly with John Langhans? Seems as though
I heard that somewhere.... If so, are you still in touch with him?

- Harry Hood

John's first rate people. He's even been known to correct me on
some of my more egregiously idiotic statements on this newsgroup.
Not as often as I deserve it, but what the heck.

- Steve Rindsberg

I don't suppose you could compel John to join this discussion
- perhaps for an article? Wouldn't that be sweet!

Nudge, nudge, know what I mean.

- Harry Hood

Harry, Uber John L. has been known to read a tidbit or two or
two hundred of this group. But it seems the policy is for them
not to really participate for whatever reasons that are never quite
really explained.

So, I wouldn't expect to see him here. Unless that is that you
are really the Uber J under the Hood so to speak (g).

But, he is a great fellow and extremely smart, except when he
doesn't listen to some of us rant and rant and rant and rant. (g).

- Brian Reilly

I expect he listens plenty well enough to get it. I figure he
just doesn't have a big enough baseball bat to make sure the folks
upstairs listen and get it too.

- Steve Rindsberg

Me? "Compel"?

Sure would be nice to see The Man Himself appear here, gotta admit
that.

- Steve Rindsberg

Harry, I thought YOU were the one with connections..?

- Kathy Huntzinger

In Continuation

Naturally, I still do agree with everything you say - after all
a glass of water half empty is the same as a glass of water half
full. Just the way you put things across can make things different.

I don't debate that IE is not the viewer that should have been
- just that we need to pool our thoughts and find workarounds to
make things better. With the amount of support, add-ins and ideas
available for IE, I'm sure we
can do something.

Thread 05

First of all, you are a brave soul, Geetesh! Excellent job on
pushing the discussion up another road. This is the dialog that
will become a platform of solution for many.

I can only imagine that Microsoft would be most receptive to ideas
synchronous to development currently under way. For that reason
(and many more) I think we all should lobby for better web output
from PowerPoint. Certainly IE and PowerPoint.net are full steam
ahead. If they are listening
for any ideas, it is probably the ones that enhance those products. Here is
a real opportunity for input -- let's take advantage of it.

I agree, Geetesh, that Microsoft is not going to suddenly think, "WAIT
A MINUTE! We can breathe life back into an idea we let go of in
1997!" They are focused on a whole different set of problems,
and if we want to have an
impact on the future releases, then we ought to shift our focus too. (I can't
believe I'm saying this. I was actually getting good at being ticked off at
the Viewer issue!)

Let's get the laundry list of issues out on the table and let's
get to work. Here's to creative problem solving! Count me in!

- Harry Hood

In Continuation

Harry, thank you so much for the support - I believe there's always
a reason beyond things - a sort of destiny. Maybe, that's what
this could be. Does sound a little far fletched - but it's just
that the same questions are just being discussed on this group
since the day I started here around a year ago. Half the time we
wail about there not being a new viewer since 97 - hoping against
hope that some whiff in the air will shock the people at Microsoft
to whip up a spanking new viewer and lay it at the foot of the
pedestal that this newsgroup is.

Just that this pedestal is getting more akin to an ivory tower
- in isolating others, we may have isolated ourselves from what's
happening anew. Don't be mistaken - I can assure that everyone
here is very savvy - all of them do try out new things: just witness
the barrage of knowledge upsurging in this very thread.

I know all this talk without action is useless - I'll shoot the
first salvo at Indezine, my site sometime today India time. And
yes, that's to be a start - I wish everybody helps everybody else
in this.

Thread 06

This is going to sound (somewhat?) negativist, but that's how
I feel.

My use of PowerPoint (and I emphasize my *personal* use) of PowerPoint
has been to make presentations that are delivered in person. This
person might be myself or someone else who is, at least somewhat,
computer-literate. Consequently, I haven't focused any serious
thought on the 'state of the viewer.'

Ironically, a few years ago, I seriously considered dumping PowerPoint
in favor of NN/IE-based presentations. This was largely because
I was frustrated with the lack of sophistication in PowerPoint
as a medium for delivering 'good' presentations.

Consequently, I view the recent rash of "where's the viewer" discussions
(and "I want to make a CD for a standalone presentation")
as a testimony to the *improvements* that MS has made in PowerPoint.
It's a compliment to the PowerPoint designers that so many seem
to see PowerPoint as 'an easy... (bestest?) way to get what-I-want-to-get-done-done...
now, if only I could get it to deliver presentations on any platform...'

This demand might reflect well on PowerPoint's capabilities and
popularity. However, isn't it possible that that would exceed --
and, by a large margin -- the intent behind the program? Microsoft
did not, and does not, market PowerPoint as a creator of standalone
presentations. It would be nice if we could get PowerPoint to do
so, but it would significantly exceed Microsoft's intent with PowerPoint.

Also, one might even argue that if a perfect PowerPoint viewer
were to exist, it would reduce Microsoft sales significantly. After
all, I suspect that in a typical organization less that 5% of the
people *make* presentations, while many more simply view them (or
present them)! Changing tacks to the subject of universality. It
doesn't exist. Not for PowerPoint presentations, not for Excel
spreadsheets, not for anything. One of the strengths of modern
software (not just Microsoft software) is its flexibility and customizability.
That also leads to cases where one cannot exactly duplicate someone
else's experience. It has nothing to do with PowerPoint.

There are those who claim that a web-based version of a PowerPoint
presentation is not universal because that there is too much diversity
among browsers. My reaction is "So what?" I submit the
same lack of universality is true even with PowerPoint itself.
PowerPoint doesn't exist in a vacuum. It needs hardware support,
OS support, driver support, etc. Embedding a QuickTime or a AVI
movie that requires a particular decoder might not work on all
machines. Hardware related issues are repeatedly demonstrated by
the recurring discussions of 'timing problems.'

A trivial but legitimate case for the absolute absence of universality:
A pure 'vanilla-and-nothing-but-vanilla' presentation might yield
a different experience even with the *same* version of PowerPoint.
It would depend on options such as 'End with black slide' or 'Pop
up menu on
right click.'

On a more positive note, the closest that one can come to the
perfect viewer is the program itself. I think that is true for
Excel, PowerPoint, Word, or a competing product from another company.

The one (only?) advantage of the moronic product activation scheme
that Mocrosoft concocted for Office XP is that we -- finally --
have the perfect viewer for every Microsoft Office product. All
Microsoft (or one of 'us?') has to do is make a version of Office
XP that is 'permanently crippled.' The need for an Excel viewer,
PowerPoint viewer, Word viewer, whatever else viewer would be resolved
for good!

- Tushar Mehta

In Continuation

Previous Post (for reference): Microsoft
did not, and does not, market PowerPoint as a creator of standalone
presentations. It would be nice if we could get PowerPoint to
do so, but it would significantly exceed Microsoft's intent with
PowerPoint.

Thread 07

I'm here, it is just that I don't have much to say about either
of the viewers. The one that is out there now is deplorable. The
one they are threatening us with, right now is no better. Your
guess as to 2005 being the timeframe, is
probably a good guess. If you look at Microsoft's track record, they have not
produced a product that runs right on the first try since they released DOS
(and that was debatable). Might be even later than 2005 <g>

The majority of the work I produce is for a stand up comedian.
What is being used out there, along with along with all the workarounds,
is just fine for me. By the time they get it correct, I'll be long
gone from this business. Maybe just hang around to maintain my
lurker status.

- Michael Koerner

In Continuation

Michael, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts. Let me share
some of mine.

PowerPoint 97 is like a glass of water half empty - in time, it
will get emptier.

IE is a glass full - in time it will evolve into a glass of water
full to the brim.

And you'll never get out of business - wish you the very best
in life for whatever you do. We need you forever in this group.

- Geetesh Bajaj

In Continuation

Previous Post (for reference):If
you look at Microsoft's track record, they have not produced
a product that runs right on the first try since they released
DOS (and that was debatable).

And Microsoft didn't write that, they bought it from somebody
else.<g>

Thread 08

Seems like the real Viewer is installed on every one of my clients'
machines. It's called PowerPoint.exe.

- Brian Reilly

In Continuation

Brian, that's true.

On the other hand, the browser could still be an enriched viewer
- where you could cook together anything which can output to it
- and today, you would be hard pressed to find something which
cannot output to IE.

On another front, Tushar's thoughts of a 'crippled application
- great viewer' make an excellent observation.

- Geetesh Bajaj

In Continuation

Previous Post (for reference): On the other
hand, the browser could still be an enriched viewer - where
you could cook together anything which can output to it - and today, you would
be hard pressed to find something which cannot output to IE.

?

I don't have to look a lot farther than PowerPoint to find that.

Let's look at this from another perspective. Every time I design
a presentation for a client, we play 20 questions. I have to ask
them about the platform they expect the final presentation to run
on, whether they control it or not (ie, their computers or any
computer it happens to land on). That leads to a discussion of
fonts. Media. All the usual stuff.

And what it inevitably comes down to is that UNLESS they intend
to run the presentations only on their own computers under controlled
circumstances, we have to forget about using any but the most basic
of sounds, give up on any fonts other than Arial and Times New
Roman and generally toss out all the fun stuff that would really
liven up the presentation or give it a unique character.

It may be perfectly fair for Microsoft to tell us "Well,
you haven't bought PowerPoint for everyone. Suck it up and get
over it." It'd be nice if they told us that before we bought
the package. You might not believe how stunned my clients
sometimes are to learn how severely PowerPoint limits their options when they
want to distribute a presentation.

Thread 09

I've "played" with the conversion from PowerPoint to
HTML fairly heavily and in honesty found it lacking in a number
of areas. I am not so much against the idea of using a browser
as a viewer, but I want it to reproduce the presentation "exactly" as
I created it.

When we start with, half the animations don't work properly, timings
are completely destroyed, don't use a third of the features of
PowerPoint because they won't render properly in a browser, etc..
I am immediately turned off from using it.

Can the browser become the viewer of the future? Yes I believe
so, but it has a very, very long way to go before it is acceptable
for my work. What many folks at Microsoft fail to understand is
that there is a large percentage of users whom use PowerPoint for
things other than "speech giving" in a corporate setting.

I wish I were at liberty to show you some of the "artistic" presentations
I've helped clients with over the years. Or even some of the presentations
I've put together for attorneys to use in court. In both of these
cases the
client(s) rightfully insist on "exact" display of their work.

$.02 worth

- Austin Myers

In Continuation

I couldn't agree more with your thoughts - let me assure you that
they are completely in tune with mine.

However, we really need to discuss our PowerPoint to web experiences
- I'm sure we can help each other and find workarounds for common
problems.

It's just that so many of us are even averse to discussing the
role of the browser as a viewer - and I'm sure all of us have spent
many hours doing just that.

Just that we have to proceed - unless you jump in the water, you
cannot swim.

Frankly, I'm quite irritated with Microsoft's lack of concern
in providing us with a new viewer - and I do realise that there
are two sides to a coin. Certainly, Microsoft has its own thoughts
regarding this - wish they issued them in a white paper form.

However, it does appear that a new viewer may not be available.
PowerPoint 2000 made us find out ways to become compatible with
the viewer - like using AVI files for animated GIFs. PowerPoint
2002 has so much more - one cannot even begin to think of making
it viewer compliant. On the other hand, browser compliant seems
easier.

- Geetesh Bajaj

Interludes In Between

What we need is an insider - someone who can tell us
what Microsoft plans are...a mole...any volunteers in Redmond ?? <VBG>

- Paul Iordanides

All this would make for good e-zine content.

What a scoop if anyone at microsoft contributed!

- TAJ Simmons

I'll see if I can't track someone down at Microsoft. Let's see
if we can't make this happen. <g>

- Harry Hood

Harry, thank you so much for your input. The suspense you're building
is leading us where?

- Geetesh Bajaj

More than the ezine, much much more - this is a new direction.

I'll be converting much of this content to an easily readable
format - but there's still so much to be said and heard.

In the end, actions are more important than words - the first
salvo will be fired on Indezine sometime today India time. Naturally,
I'll post the details on this newsgroup.

- Geetesh Bajaj

In Continuation

Actually I think it's pretty obvious what Microsoft's plans are
in this area. (Can we say IE everywhere?) Have you taken a look
at "MS Producer" yet? I have been experimenting with
it and though it isn't even really a
beta yet, it does look promising. But as I said before, converting a PowerPoint
presentation to something the browser can handle has a very long way to go.

For those that haven't been in the PowerPoint"game" for
a long time, the issue of the viewer is not new. Each new version
of the viewer has lagged behind the release of PowerPoint by years.
In other words serious PowerPoint users have been fighting this
situation for a very, very long time.

Browser/viewer or whatever, I really don't care. What I do care
about is ending the years long lag between the release of a PowerPoint
version and the release of a method (any method!) to distribute
it with full support for the features native to PowerPoint.

The saving grace in all of this is that PowerPoint has reached
something of a critical mass and is no longer the "red headed
step-child" of the Office suite. (I think PhotoDraw gets that
title now.) With the acceptance as a
main stream application Microsoft will be forced into a position to address
this issue. Or at least I hope this is the case. In any case, the problem has
existed for years and it's well past time that Microsoft gets off the dime
and give
the users something besides half baked solutions that don't work or meet the
users needs.

As far as "us" finding work arounds to use the product
I'll be honest and say that I for one am not interested in trying.
Why? Because I don't have a clear (I don't even have a faint notion)
roadmap of where Microsoft is taking any of this. Is it HTML, XML,
SOAP, .Net, who knows? Not anyone I've talked with.

It's tough enough to solve problems and build on the future when
you know where your going. Doing it with no idea where things will
be 6 months down the road is all but impossible. BTDT and not the
least bit interested in doing it again.

Whew, almost got on my soap box again...

- Austin Myers

Interludes In Between

Wow Austin, your essay was most thought provoking. Someone somewhere
must be reading it - let's hope this prompts them into action.

- Geetesh Bajaj

Aren't all users of Microsoft software moles in a way? We are
completely in the dark, groping around in the muck trying to fight
our way down a tunnel with no end in sight. ;-)

Maybe what we need is someone with a flashlight.

- Mike M

Good one Mike!! LOL!!

- Sonia Coleman

Why do you need a flashlight - just strike a match. It's obvious
- there's no new spanking PowerPoint Viewer forthcoming. We need
to do best with what we have. It seems we have 3 options:

The first can be run off a CD, the second is omnipresent and the
third is a thought.

The very thought behind this thread is that we are not moles,
we're going to do something. And there's got to be light at the
end of the tunnel anyway.

- Geetesh Bajaj

Paul, insider or no insider - that's not the subject. I think
we should just get ahead with this thing without waiting for any
input from Microsoft. If there's an input from them, that may be
a bonus - but without them, we all can still help each other. That's
the whole essence of this newsgroup.

Thread 10

Contrary to Walt Disney, it is not a "very small, small world".
It is a very large world with a diverse user base who have different
skill levels and very different hardware and software installations.
I'm sure this is hard to believe, but I actually know people who
are still running Windows 3.1! Well, they don't get a CD from me,
but they seem perfectly happy despite that. <g>

I do however deal with so many users who are not Web savvy and
certainly don't understand XML or HTML. They don't even understand
their PC, frankly. They adopted PowerPoint because it was supposed
to be easy to use and didn't require code. Now they want to distribute
their presentation to other users like themselves -even to - GASP!!
- people who don't use the Internet except for e-mail.

My users and correspondents include designers, home users, and
elementary school teacher's who are trying to build, e.g., student
records for a permanent file with a copy to the parents. (Broad
unknown audience of varied skills and system capability.) Also,
many people intend to make an autorun CD a permanent archive that
will always work. On the Web I could not promise this. Five years
from now the Viewer on the CD will be unchanged. Yes, I know that
the system will have changed too, but I think there's a better
chance that the CD will still work. However, the browser on the
system may have changed dramatically. Just some thoughts.

Yep, a lot of "us" know how to put something on the
web or to a local disk-based Web. Some of us even know how to move
that to a CD. However, that CD (which doesn't contain the viewing
software) will be created and tested based on the available browsers
today and installed on the target system. What happens when changes
to the browser take place in the future? Also, a website is not
a good archival location. We're talking about weddings, births,
religious ceremonies, vacations, drawings from an 8
year-old, writings of kids of all ages, all things of value that must be saved.
The list is endless. Terribly valuable to the families and participants. These
need to be permanently archived and accessible.

Believe me, I am not resistant to change. I'm just trying to think
of the very large and over-looked user-base and audience out there.
Microsoft addresses the needs of their top corporate users who
sign large lucrative contracts with them and develop business presentations
for one-time-only
use. I think they are really blind of the value to their millions of private
individual users.

Oh, and for whoever mentioned it, there will probably be no "moles" here.
Moles live under-ground and only enjoy disturbing the soil and
the roots, but never show their face and certainly do nothing to
enhance growth. On the other hand, we probably all realize that
until the Microsoft Corp. makes a formal announcement, no employee
can discuss the subject. However, I do believe that they watch
and listen.

- Sonia Coleman

In Continuation

Sonia, you took a long time to write that - and whatever points
you've raised are very important and humane.

After reading your thoughts, I believe the PowerPoint world is
in 2 streams: those using PowerPoint 97 (and half of PowerPoint
2000 users) will continue convention. Facilities for them have
long existed and have been fine tuned with the deliberations on
this very newsgroup.

The other stream is the upcoming user generation of PowerPoint
2002 (and the other half of PowerPoint 2000 users) - what with
the ability to roundtrip PowerPoint presentations between PPT and
HTML formats.

And yes, you can very easily create an autorun CD with a PowerPoint
HTML presentation. I've created a small solution - I'll be posting
it on Indezine today. I'm sure you can fine tune it for ACDPC version
3.

- Geetesh Bajaj

Interludes In Between

I'm sure that Shyam is relishing this entire thread. <VBG> I've
given up on Redmond and am looking to Bombay for an announcement. <EG>

- Sonia Coleman

Well, if Shyam's creating a new viewer - then that's great news
- no wonder he's not participating on this thread. Anyway, Bombay
became Mumbai years ago!

- Geetesh Bajaj

I didn't say that he was doing that, did I? I believe that he
is very capable of the task, however.

Shyam still claims to live in Bombay and that's what my Atlas
(unfortunately ten years old) shows and what the Net says "half" the
time. I have relied upon him to tell me where he lives. <VBG> I
do see that Mumbai is now the favored name, but perhaps not by
Shyam or his family. I certainly don't know. I try to recognize
the terms and city names that my friends prefer. <VBG>

- Sonia Coleman

I know changed names can be such a problem - in the last decade,
three of our four largest cities have been renamed. Bombay became
Mumbai, Madras is now Chennai and Calcutta is called Kolkata.

Thread 11

Having been gone all morning, I have just had the unique experience
of reading this entire batch of postings and finding myself agreeing
with almost all of them. I would love it if Someone wrote it up
as a group article, I can think of several places on-line that
would post it (Not the least of which is each of our sites). Having
said that, I want to add my two cents...

I come to the PowerPoint world as a trainer, both of PowerPoint
and of other subjects using PowerPoint presentations. When I am
going to a training site, I can not dictate which browser is installed.
However, I can ask "Do
you have PowerPoint on the machine or do I need to bring a copy of the viewer?" and
get a reasonable answer.

Once I am at the client site, using PowerPoint I can make changes
based on client need quickly and generically using PowerPoint,
test it in the same tool, and resave the presentation in an instant.
If I have to depend on running the presentation on a browser I
need to save as HTML and test it with another application. In addition,
I need to regenerate the HTML for even the slightest change, as
the HTML generated by Microsoft's tools is graphics based and not
always able to handle the tricks used by the average
trainer. This adds extra work that my clients (quite bluntly) don't want to
pay for.

Being a Netscape user and an IE user, I can attest that the HTMl
from the same base presentation being run in the two browsers can
look totally different. At most corporations, the browser choice
is dicated from above and not able to be changed. While I can load
a copy of the viewer from the
CD to memory without installing it, I can not do that with any browser I know
of. This means getting IT involved in a training session, delaying the students
learning.

One other point: Running a presentation during a class using PowerPoint
or the viewer is an intuitive action. The trainer or presenter
does not need to think about which buttons, etc., to push, because
the presentation is being
run in the tool used to create the presentation. Changing this to a browser
based presentation requires that the trainer or presenter to become intimately
familiar with not just a second tool, but also a full markup language for troubleshooting.
Being as my computer skills put me definitely in the minority among trainers
(even to this day), I can tell you that most non-technical trainers and professors
don't want to learn more about the computer than they absolutely have to. There
are enough pieces of the world to keep up with - they get touchy when you push
more technology at them.

I would love to start encouraging trainers to use browsers as
a mechanism for presenting their PowerPoint created materials -
It would give me plenty of business for my train the trainer sessions.
However, I don't think any browser is to that point as yet.

- Kathryn Jacobs

Interludes In Between

Kathy, thank you for sharing your observations.

I think we've achieved so much on this thread - we've set the
minds of so many of us in a quantum shift. That's already against
convention!

- Geetesh Bajaj

Geetesh, which thread were you talking about archiving in your
earlier post? If it wasn't this one, can I suggest that you do
this one also?

- Steve Rindsberg

I think it was Kathy and TAJ who suggested the archiving first
- I just popped in!

Actually, it's already done - I've just posted a while ago for
any objections to use everybody's thoughts. If no one objects,
hope to see it soon at Indezine - and I'll be glad to allow the
compilation to be mirrored if anyone's interested?